Germantown Mom Joins ONE.org Bloggers in Africa

Lindsay Maines hopes to change the world, one blog post at a time.

Maines, 36, of Germantown, will be blogging from Kenya through an initiative launched ONE.org, a grass-roots advocacy group founded by U2 front man, Bono.

Maines is a blogger, media consultant, journalist and writer, whose prior work includes a developing a mom-centric social media site for Lifetime, LifetimeMoms.com. She maintains her own blog, Rock & Roll Mama, for “moms who know the minivan's not the end of the music.”

When Patch spoke with her, Maines was making the final baby sitting arrangements for her three kids — her husband, Dan Maines is a bass player for local rock band Clutch and in the midst of a nationwide tour — and tying up loose ends for the media conference she’s coordinating in California right after the Kenya trip.

There’s also the psychological part, she said. What will she experience once she arrives in Kenya? What will it be like, interacting with Kenyan women, mother-to-mother?

"My flight leaves Saturday,” Maines told Patch on Wednesday.

For a week, Maines and nine other mothers will blog daily about the experience of Kenyan mothers with hopes of making a difference through blogging.

 “Any form of storytelling has the potential to impact someone, by personalizing the narrative,” Maines said.

A rock ’n’ roll mamma

Prior to her involvement with ONE.org, Maines had focused most of her energy on using her own website as a platform for selling her work-in-progress novel about motherhood. In fact, blogging was an afterthought.

“The easiest cheapest way to create a website was through WordPress,” Maines said.

But she found motherhood to be isolating, at times, which drove her deeper into the sub-culture of women bloggers with children. She found connections here.

“Your tribe is not limited to your geography,” she said.

That novel is still a work in progress, Maines said.

It only takes ONE mom

Then, someone with ONE.org left a comment on one of her posts. The comments progressed to email exchanges, to a phone call with the organization’s deputy press director explaining what one.org mission as an advocacy group. It was during that conversation, Maines said, that she learned that Bono was a founder of the organization, which was a plus.

“I started spitting coffee on my computer keys,” Maines said. “I was a huge U2 fan in high school.”

That said, Maines, a lifelong resident of Germantown, said she grew up too close to D.C. —thus skeptical of the intentions of those who toss around feel-good words like “advocacy.” But Maines said that the more she heard and the more she researched, the more she became convinced that advocacy could have an effect on policy.

She said she was no longer comfortable in her “suburban bubble.”

“It made me uncomfortable with staying in my comfort zone,” Maines said. “It’s too easy to make a difference.”

ONE has it's critics

Critics of ONE.org’s advocacy have questioned whether giving voice to an issue is enough to bring about change, and have argued instead that change — as in dollars and cents — was what was really needed.

In June, Matt Patterson, a Rockville resident and senior editor at Capitol Research Center in DC wrote an Op Ed for the Baltimore Sun, “U2: Great music in the service of dubious cause,” in advance of a U2 concert in Baltimore.

Patterson’s article claimed that of the $15 million it received in contributions in 2008, just over one percent was distributed to charities and that more than $8 million went to the salaries of executives and ONE employees.

A clarifcation was later posted above the article:

 “Although the ONE foundation's $15 million in funding in 2008 is listed in tax documents as “contributions,” the organization does not solicit funding from the general public but from foundations and board members, according to ONE’s website and a statement from a spokeswoman.”

The original article also quoted ONE spokesman Oliver Buston, who said, "We don't provide programs on the ground. We an advocacy and campaigning organization." And drew responses in defense of ONE.org’s advocacy, whose defenders included U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin.

Can blogging make a difference?

But what remains is this broader question of whether advocacy is an appropriate role for charities — can blogging really make a difference?

Maines thinks so.

 “It’s not just taking a charity’s money and saying, ‘Let’s take bloggers to Africa,’” Maines said. “Our function is to remind the world League at the G8 Summit of the promises they made.”

 Maines said that while in Africa, she would be blogging about women and entrepreneurship — a topic she can relate to.

 “Africa’s future is female,” said Maines, who was referencing ONE’s recent report on the global status of women.

According to the report, women are a driving force in the African economy. In Kenya, women produce 80 percent of the food and represent 70 percent of all agricultural workers, but according to the report, women own less than 10 percent of the farm land and receive less than 10 percent of the credits provided to small holders.

Finding your voice

Maines said she thinks advocacy can sway policy by putting in the minds of policy makers and people with the funds and resources to back it.

She seemed to channel the mantra of Global Soccer Mom blogger, Shayne Moore, who was drawn to ONE.org’s efforts to urge world leaders to fund HIV/AIDS initiatives. Part of former president George W. Bush’s legacy was PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). Maines said she would like to think that the work of advocacy groups such as ONE.org are owed some credit for keeping the issue of AIDS relevant in the global public psyche.

Raising awareness, she said, can be as easy as posting a blog.

“Your voice counts,” Maines said. “Make sure you use it.”